Microsoft have announced their latest version SQL Server 2017 will also have a version for Linux. Is anybody planning to use this? I only use it occasionally these days as the main database server is MySQL...

The main SQL server I use is MySQL (M/S < 10%) but there have been a couple of horrendous problems which were logged years ago and remain unfixed. TBH in my previous job (five years ago) we changed from M/S to MySQL as we hit problems and M/S wanted £££££ to talk. So I will watch developments with interest...

One issue I have had is that the MySQL CLI uses my.cnf (a configuration file) whereas the visual tool 'MySQL Workbench' does not but uses its own C/C++ libraries. This caused inconsistent behaviour until understood and is pretty bad practice by the MySQL development people IMHO.

The other problem have had is that if the last entry in a table (InnoDB engine) is deleted before a reboot its PK (primary key) will be reused. Now if this PK is an FK (foreign key) in another table 'FK Hell' can break lose! This is as grim as hitting Mint dependency hell, which I have done a few times! Argh... This did mean a lot of extra code to avoid the problem!

I am not promoting M/S SQL server as I have also had issues with it in the past but I have never seen an issue drag on as long as the MySQL PK one!

We have been using MySQL in anger for about two years but started development about three years ago. I had been using it at a previous gig over five years ago. A consultant did suggest MariaDB and it was looked at but not taken further as some issue cropped up! I doubt M/S SQL will be a real contender because of licensing costs. My main worry is that at board level there are mumblings about NoSQL. Having looked at it I,and another techie,are unconvinced for our applications.Unfortunately buzz words get more time and have more influence than they deserve...